Comparison of low cost methods to detect fecal contamination in drinking water of rural Cambodian villages

Alia Khan BSPH- Environmental Science and Engineering Advised by Dr. Mark Sobsey

Background: 1.1 billion people lack access to improved drinking water and as a result suffer from water-borne diseases such as dysentery and diarrhea, leading to more than 1.8 million deaths per year caused by diarrheal diseases. In developing countries such as Cambodia, surface water is usually polluted with pathogens and microbes, and ground water is often contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic. Water disinfection supplies and fuel to boil water can be expensive, often out of reach for poor families living on less than $2 US dollars a day. Simple and accessible methods to detect Escherichia coli (e. coli) (the standard bacterial indicator of fecal contamination recommended by the World Health Organization, and the US EPA) are extremely important in developing countries. Research Objective: To compare the efficacy of alternative low cost/simple methods to detect e.coli with the standard US-EPA method, membrane filtration. To compare the growth of bacterial colonies (the results of the tests) at both ambient Cambodian air temperature and standard incubation. If the results prove the same, the need for expensive equipment such as an incubator could be deemed unnecessary. Alternative methods: Easygel, Petrifilm, H2S homemade Broth, H2S Pathoscreen.

Data analysis was conducted via statistical software- InStata3.0. Results:

Bacterial concentrations were compared for Easygel and Petrifilm to standard membrane filtration via Friedman Test (Non-parametric Repeated Measures ANOVA), showing no significant difference. Pvalue= 0.2640. Ambient versus Incubation paired concentrations were compared for each method separately via Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Significant-Ranks.
No significant difference for Membrane Filtration, Easygel, H2S Broth and Pathoscreen. Significant difference for Petrifilm.

Research Findings

Comparison of Membrane Filtration to H2S tests shows significant difference.

Conclusion: Easygel and Petrifilm- simpler and lower cost methods to detect e.coli, show the same results as membrane filtration in their detection limits at standard incubation. H2S tests show a significant difference to membrane filtration in their detection limit. False positives in the H2S tests could be a result of naturally occurring H2S producing bacteria in tropical soils, therefore a limitation of this test in tropical environments. Easygel, membrane filtration, and H2S tests did not show significant differences in their detection limits at ambient temperatures. Therefore expensive, energy consuming incubators may be unnecessary to conduct these experiments.